Another one died Wednesday.
I can’t say that as I approach my 67th birthday next month I find myself paying more attention to obituary notices. There’s no truth to the cliched joke that I check the obits each morning to make sure I am still alive. Truth is, I’ve always found the recounting of an individual’s life to be among the most fascinating and interesting articles in a newspaper.
A few years ago, at a luncheon for mostly retired journalists eager to hear Gail Collins, an acquaintance from back in the early 1970s when her husband and I worked at The New Haven Register, I sat next to a veteran reporter from The New York Times. His career covering police and politics had downshifted to part-time work on the obit page. Most of the history of the renowned, he confirmed to me, was pre-written. Only the most recent news of the deceased required immediate input by deadlines made ever tighter because of Internet editions.
No doubt, like many of you, I’ve been startled and saddened by the seemingly weekly revelation that another icon of the rock scene of the 1960s and 1970s has passed away. Not that they were young. David Bowie was 69, Glenn Frey, 67, Paul Kantner, 74, Signe Anderson, 74, and Maurice White, who died Wednesday, was 74. To some it must have been amazing that they lasted as long as they did given the abusive lifestyle many rockers lived decades ago.
Here’s another truth—I knew few if any of them by name (don’t fret, I knew David Bowie). Oh, I knew their groups, even sang along with many of their songs. However I would not survive the first round of a game show contest if I had to match a band’s name with a specific song.
But ask me to identify the music from a Broadway show circa 1943-1970 and I’d possibly run the table. Perhaps that’s one reason I so enjoyed Ellie’s star turns in musical theater productions during her teen years, though the plays she performed in were written later than my sweet spot years.
I’m not trying to be sentimental in my appreciation of the music of the deceased and nearly so. Read Timothy Egan’s genre eulogy instead: http://nyti.ms/1UPVA9J.
If you must mourn, lament members of a generation now in their middle age who have forgotten the message behind much of the music of their youth. Love, peace, tolerance, equality. Instead, too many have embraced the message of anger and exclusion espoused by Ted Cruz and Donald Trump.
I get it. Not everyone was a liberal back in the 1960s. But there outta be a law, or at least an admonition—you can only listen to someone’s music if you share their values. I’m okay not playing Ted Nugent. Let’s check the playlists on Cruz’s and Trump’s iPhones. And those of Marco Rubio, Carly Fiorina, Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum, Jeb Bush, Chris Christie and Rick Perry, as well.